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September 24th, 2009, 15:36

perfectly playable in normal difficulty, getting gold victories and all… *if* you are familiar with turn based strategy, but for the normal populace they'll probably enjoy it more in easy, at least the first playthrough.

Im very familiar with turn-based strategies since 1989 (the latest I bought was War in the pacific Admirals Edition) and I have played all the generals from panzer to peoples and fantasy wars is definetly old school hard (if not som more even). Ive shown it to som friends who play fantasy strategies and the immediatly got frustated with it and quit it to the first orc campaign. So I do recommend easy to everyone.

The problem i have with game like this is that there is a border that once it crosses it the game turns from strategy game into a puzzle game. Suddenly the game has only "one" way to solve each scenario and you have to play the same scenario over and over again until you find it. Of course if you like puzzle games more than war/strategy games then that is not bad thing at all. Anyways I think this is my main beef with it. With years grown to dislike the series because its too puzzle-like for my tastes.

I think the learning curve is worse than in the old fantasy general. Just compare the start of the fantasy general campaign to the start of the orc campaign in fantasy wars. Allthough I have propably lost som of my edge I still rememeber it been much easier.

Have to say that the demo of FW had an easier starter orc scenario (perhaps too easy even) but I guess they wanted to "tune up" the difficulty for release.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
The AI is easy to take advantage of using some basic tactics. Even though it might have more units or more powerful units, you have a huge advantage in being able to out smart it.

Dont know about the elven sequel but Ive played all teh single scenarios and I have to say the AI has way more units. Often the only reason I have survived is because it doesnt use all the advantiges it has.

Allthough this is how it has always been in general series. So I dont consider it has a bad thing. Its hard if not impossible to code a good AI for strategy game.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke

Originally Posted by zakhal
Dont know about the elven sequel but Ive played all teh single scenarios and I have to say the AI has way more units. Often the only reason I have survived is because it doesnt use all the advantiges it has.

Allthough this is how it has always been in general series. So I dont consider it has a bad thing. Its hard if not impossible to code a good AI for strategy game.

You are correct, sir! The AI has a ton of units and most of the time your outgunned and outmatched. That's why I still enjoyed the game. Even with the AI being as dumb as a rock sometimes it was still challenging.

I would of agreed with you that it's hard/impossible to code a good AI about 2 years ago, but an indie guy proved that it is possible. Armageddon Empires has the best AI and is a strategy game to boot. His next one looks like it will be even better than AE.

Plus if you consider that Knights of the Chalice is mostly a strategy combat game, then you have to just sit back in awe over what that guy did. Those are just two examples from the indie market that have outmatched the pros.

The sad truth is that AI uses proccessor power and it is cut back to make room for graphics or other such nonsense. The programmers hands are normally tied. They are only allowed so much power from the processor before some big wig will tell them to make it smaller. It's not impossible to make a good AI, it's just not cost effective

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
You are correct, sir! The AI has a ton of units and most of the time your outgunned and outmatched. That's why I still enjoyed the game. Even with the AI being as dumb as a rock sometimes it was still challenging.

I would of agreed with you that it's hard/impossible to code a good AI about 2 years ago, but an indie guy proved that it is possible. Armageddon Empires has the best AI and is a strategy game to boot. His next one looks like it will be even better than AE.

Plus if you consider that Knights of the Chalice is mostly a strategy combat game, then you have to just sit back in awe over what that guy did. Those are just two examples from the indie market that have outmatched the pros.

The sad truth is that AI uses proccessor power and it is cut back to make room for graphics or other such nonsense. The programmers hands are normally tied. They are only allowed so much power from the processor before some big wig will tell them to make it smaller. It's not impossible to make a good AI, it's just not cost effective

Depends on how many possible moves the game has. You can code good AI for chess but not for i.e War in the pacific Admirals Edition. I dont know how complex armageddon empires AI is or wheather is uses cheats (apparently not).

If you want to build a good AI you need to build the game around it not the otherway around. Usually though AI is never that high on priority list in strategy games. Even a cheating AI can still be good AI as long as you dont know its cheating.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke